Topic 3.10 Notes – Shaping a New Republic

How the New Republic Actually Worked

The Constitution gave a framework. Washington and Adams had to make it real. Washington mattered so much because people trusted him, and that trust helped the new federal government look legitimate instead of fragile.

• Cabinet system took shape under Washington. His main advisers were Alexander Hamilton at Treasury, Thomas Jefferson at State, Henry Knox at War, and Edmund Randolph as attorney general.
• Judiciary Act of 1789 created lower federal courts and organized the Supreme Court, so the national government actually had a court system below the top.
• Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791, partly to calm fears that the new Constitution gave too much power to the center.
• Washington strengthened executive power through diplomacy, enforcing federal law, and claiming the power to remove executive officers.
• He rejected royal style and stopped after two terms, creating the precedent later written into law much later.

Under all of this were the arguments that shaped the decade:

• Strict vs. broad construction
• National power vs. states’ rights
• Liberty vs. order
• Agrarian republic vs. commercial republic
• How to survive among Britain, France, Spain, and Native nations

Hamilton’s Program and the Rise of Parties

Hamilton wanted a stronger national economy because he thought weak finances could kill the republic.

• Funding the debt at full value built confidence in the government’s promises.
• Assumption meant the federal government would take on state Revolutionary War debts, tying creditors to national success.
• Tariff of 1789 and excise taxes brought in revenue.
• First Bank of the United States held federal money and expanded credit.

The Compromise of 1790 got assumption passed and placed the permanent capital on the Potomac, which led to Washington, D.C.

The Bank fight became a Constitution fight. Hamilton used loose construction and the necessary and proper clause. Jefferson answered with strict construction, saying Congress only had powers specifically listed.

The Whiskey Rebellion tested whether federal power meant anything. Western farmers resisted the whiskey excise tax. Washington sent militia forces to stop the rebellion. That was a huge contrast with Shays’ Rebellion, when the Articles government could barely respond.

These debates created the first party system:

Party identity also spread through newspapers, political clubs, and congressional alliances.

Foreign Policy and Western Conflict in the 1790s

The U.S. needed peace because it was too weak for a major war, but expansion kept dragging it into conflict.

The biggest western issue was Native land. The map below highlights the Ohio Country fighting that led to the Treaty of Greenville.

Treaty of Greenville, 1795

The U.S. claimed territory Britain had given up, but Native nations had never agreed to that transfer.

• Trade and Intercourse Act of 1790 said only the federal government could approve Native land sales.
• In the Ohio Valley, a Native confederacy including Shawnee, Miami, and Delaware resisted U.S. expansion.
• Britain still held forts and supported Native resistance.
• Anthony Wayne defeated Native forces at Fallen Timbers in 1794.
• Treaty of Greenville in 1795 forced large land cessions in Ohio.

Spain mattered too because western farmers needed the Mississippi River.

• Pinckney’s Treaty or Treaty of San Lorenzo in 1795
  • set the 31st parallel as Florida’s boundary
  • gave free navigation of the Mississippi
  • gave the right of deposit at New Orleans

Spain was also expanding in California through missions, presidios, and settlements beginning with San Diego in 1769. Missions relied on bonded/coerced Native labor, but this frontier also created cultural blending and some social mobility for soldiers and mixed-ancestry people.

European war made neutrality a crisis. Washington issued the Proclamation of Neutrality in 1793, and Congress passed the Neutrality Act of 1794. The Citizen Genêt affair showed that the president, not a foreign minister, controlled U.S. diplomacy.

With Britain, problems included forts in the Northwest, impressment, ship seizures, and trade limits. Jay’s Treaty in 1794-1795 got British evacuation of forts and some settlement commissions, but only limited trade gains. Democratic-Republicans hated it.

Washington’s Farewell Address warned against sectionalism, political factions, and permanent foreign alliances. He supported neutrality, not total isolation.

Adams, Civil Liberties, and the Election of 1800

Under Adams, foreign tension turned into a civil liberties fight at home.

• XYZ Affair happened when French agents demanded a bribe before negotiations, which caused anti-French outrage.
• The Quasi-War with France from 1798 to 1800 was an undeclared naval conflict.
• Adams resisted full war and ended the crisis with the Convention of 1800, which also ended the 1778 alliance.

The Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798 included:

• Naturalization Act
• Alien Friends Act
• Alien Enemies Act
• Sedition Act

These were used mainly against Democratic-Republican critics, including Matthew Lyon.

Jefferson and Madison answered with the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. They argued states could judge unconstitutional federal laws through interposition and nullification.

The Election of 1800 ended in a tie between Jefferson and Aaron Burr, so the House chose Jefferson after 36 ballots. The significance is huge. It was a peaceful transfer of power between rival parties, which proved the Constitution could survive intense partisan conflict. It later led to the Twelfth Amendment, which separated electoral votes for president and vice president.